Walking Free: Taking Small Steps to a Big God by Micah Tyler with Robert Noland Book Revie

 

 

In Walking Free, Micah Tyler has invited reader through a forty-two-day journey in getting free from whatever things that our holding us back. He first began the book by sharing a story from Kyle Idleman Bible Study. He since grew on the story and did more research on the topic. The United States created a special job force to assist people during the Great Depression. They would choose what jobs they would want to participate in and they were provided to accomplish the tasks. In one town, they hired a lot of unemployed men to help build a road that used to be wilderness. They were all hopeful and excited for the work. They would come in early and stay late to work on the road. They finally got the courage to ask the government official where the road was going to be leading to and he told them it was a road to nowhere. It was created only to help make money. They eventually lost the motivation and production decreased and people stopped showing up for work. They lost their purpose. 

 

 

This led to Micah in following his God given dreams of pursing music and ministry. He also explained how becoming a songwriter that this opened the doors for him to be tested and challenged. One of the stories, he shared was about the song he wrote entitled, “Walking Free”. His brother, Daniel has battled cancer twice. He beat it the first time and then it returned in 2020 and they were able to remove the tumor. The cancer has since come back in 2022 with even more tumors and he’s still battling it today. You would have thought his brother would have stopped serving others. He goes through treatments one day and then he will still go back to his students. Micah explained how this song is about walking free alongside Christ through whatever we may face. He is with us when we go through the fire. 

 

 

A powerful lesson he discussed was on how they lived in a single wide mobile home. They all shared it as a family all three kids. The younger child didn’t even have a room and he had to share with his brother in a twin bed, This taught them to live peaceful in tight quarters. They did eventually save up to build their dream home. His younger didn’t have his own room until he was six years old. One day, he asked him what he preferred the trailer or the house. He was shocked when his son, Seth told him the trailer. His response was because all of his memories are there. He learned to bike, share a room, and much more. His son was fulfilled where he was and he didn’t know that there could be anything better. This taught him to reply on God and appreciate the waiting process. God may be building us up inside so when we do get what we are hoping for we will have room in our heart to be grateful for the blessing. 

 

 

 

I would recommend this awesome book to anyone is seeking a book to assist them in walking free from anything that is hinder them from growing. I really enjoyed reading about how he got signed as a Christian artist and how God caused him to be in the right place at the right time and he was networked by divine connections. I liked how he shared some of the background from some of his songs and how they came to be. It was cool in learning from the songwriter perceptive and I was able to relate even more to the stories told in his songs. I liked how he designed the book to be daily/ or weekly journey and readers can take small steps each day. I also liked how each day contained next-step questions to help readers dive deeper into the message. 

 

 

 

 

"I received this book free from the publisher, K-Love Books for my honest review.”

 

 

 

 

 

If you would like to purchase a copy, check it out on Amazon.com:

 

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Walking-Free-Taking-Small-Steps/dp/1954201419/

Believe for It: Passing Faith to the Next Generation by Cece Winans with Suzanne Grosselin Book Review

In Believe for It, Cece Winans helped readers to understand the importance of passing on our faith in Christ to the next generation. She opened up about how she grew up in a Christian home.  She explained how she was the eighth child born into her father. But she was the very first Winans. In the book, she revealed how that name came to be. She shared how her whole family grew up singing and her house was filled with music. Her parents come from broken homes and when they married, they made a vow to stay together and raise Godly children. They helped lay the foundation for a relationship with Christ and this in turn led her to passing on her faith to the next generation. She explained how she became a gospel recording artist and how she raised her own two children to love God and keep the faith going throughout the generations. 

 

 

In 2012, her and her husband, Alvin started a church named, Nashville Life Church. They were both nearing retirement age and God called them to start a church. She revealed how 15 years prior to starting the church a woman boldly stated how they would one day her husband would become a pastor. He was often mistaken for a pastor in different places he went. She shared how her son also returned home from Australia and they would pray that he would come back to his faith. He ended up coming back and this led to them starting a church. She stated a heartbreaking statement, “roughly 40 percent were missing a dad or mom in the home while growing up.” She explained how faith is becoming less and less popular and how we need to change that and merge all of the generations together. She also looked at the verse that stated for us to not look down on younger people and how we must be an example to them with our love, faith, and actions. She shared how she begin to enjoy the intergenerational relationships that are in her church. 

 

 

Worldliness is being more prevalent and the enemy is working overtime to make us believe his lies. One of the big lies he will use against us when we are trying to pass on our faith to others is that the task is that we aren’t qualified. He makes us believe that we aren’t good enough to follow God’s will and plan for our lives. Most of us have at some point said to ourselves that we could never do that. She recalled how scripture reminds us that we are able to anything through Christ. She personally shared how she didn’t think she could stand up on stage and teach for one hour. She had to overcome that fear and believe that she could carry out God’s will for her life. Another area that we believe that we are failures and we could never lead the next generation because of our past sins. She carefully clarified how everyone is a sinner and if we waited until we perfect, then none of us would be leading others. The Bible is filled with imperfect people, Rebekah, Joseph, David, and much more. Many of us may be living with shame and letting it dictate how we live our lives. Jesus died where we can stop feeling guilty over our past sins. 

 

 

I would recommend this awesome book on passing on our faith to our children to every single parent, grandparent, and to people who don’t have children. We all can be a positively influence for the next generations and Cece talks to all readers on ways they can do that. I appreciated how she understood how some of us may be burned out and struggling with our mental health but there is hope. We can get refreshed and then work towards sowing faith into the next generation. I liked how she encouraged us to seek God and study the scriptures and pass them on to the next generation. She even had a nice suggestion if you don’t have children, you can start a Bible study and engage with the younger generation. I also liked how she explained the roles of different ages and how we all must work together for the Kingdom of God. I thought she did a wonderful job in sharing her own hardships and how she lost one of her brothers and this was one of her darkest days. She was very real in trying to help others through their own adversity. It was interesting to read about how the idea for her first live album came to be right before the pandemic. It was cool to hear about how the song, Believe for It was written and how it was the very last song for the record that ended up become the theme for the entire record. The idea come when one of the producers was mowing his lawn of all things. They were searching for a song that declared that we are believing that God is able to the impossible. As we have heard the song by now, the lyrics of this song has changed lives! 

 

 

 

 

 

"I received this book free from the publisher, K-Love Books for my honest review.”

 

 

 

 

 

If you would like to purchase a copy, check it out on Amazon.com:

 

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Believe-Passing-Faith-Next-Generation/dp/1954201346

Look What You’ve Done: The Lies We Believe and the Truth that Sets Us Free by Tasha Layton with Jocelyn Bailey Book Review

 

In Look What You’ve Done, Tasha Layton has written down her personal story about her journey to become a songwriter and a Christian singer. This book covered her struggle with dealing with shame and feeling less than. She tried to bury her shame so deep that it wouldn’t ever come to the surface. She explained how this led to her hit song, same name as the title of this book. She was able to connect with God and let Him in her brokenness. In the book, she also touched on her auditioning for American Idol, eventually becoming a background singer for Katy Perry, leaving music, coming back to music, getting married, and having children. 

 

 

 

She grew up in a small town in South Carolina and didn’t have many friends. Her family just couldn’t afford to participate in sports, dance, or any other fun group activities. She lived in a trailer and she explained how she wouldn’t invite kids over because she was afraid of being judged. She always believed that the other kids in nicer housed were just better people than her. Her parents worked hard to provide for them. She shared how she felt not beautiful enough and she didn’t think she had the right hairstyle. She had a deep fear of rejection and she strived to be perfect. She felt the seeds of comparison. This robs us of our identify and contentment. She revealed how gratitude is an important practice we need to put into place where it can change our perspective. We all need to learn to enjoy what we do have and not focus on what we don’t. 

 

 

She shared a heartbreaking story about a bad nightmare she had that messed her up for years. This started because of an event at school that humiliated her. She was in first grade when they were all supposed to be taking turns reading out loud. She needed to go to the bathroom and the teacher thought she was trying to get out of her turn. When it was time for her to read, she wet herself in front of the whole classroom. She was laughed at and sent to the bathroom located in the classroom. The teacher was annoyed and left her in their until it was time to go home. This led her to believe the lie that she was a bad child who deserved punishment. She also opened up about how she was called one of them Chia Pets because of her leg hair. She was embarrassed and she made a vow to never to be made fun of again. She went home and shaved her own legs and ended up cutting her legs and leaving behind a scar. This shared all of these personal stories where readers can understand that, “our memories inform who we become”. The real enemy is very good at planting lies and reinforcing them and disguise them as truths. In the book, she walks readers through how she received counseling and was able to heal and move forward. 

 

 

 

I would recommend this awesome book about Christian artist, Tasha Layton. I have only recently listened to her music became a fan of her voice and now her story. One of my first songs I heard of her was a song she sung with Josh Wilson. I then listened to her other songs and she has an incredible voice range and her lyrics are life changing. I intensely connected with her story and I appreciated how real she was in sharing her brokenness, the lies we are believing, and shame. I really didn’t like how she was treated in school and church. Fans will be shocked to her about her teenage boyfriend mother experience and how she treated her. I was in awe in reading about her struggle with wanting to end it all at the lowest moment of her life during her collage life and feeling miserable but thank God she is still her changing lives. 

 

 

 

 

 

"I received this book free from the publisher, K-Love Books for my honest review.”

 

 

 

 

 

If you would like to purchase a copy, check it out on Amazon.com:

 

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Look-What-Youve-Done-Believe/dp/1954201389/

Behind the Lights: The Adventure of a Mum and Her Family by Helen Smallbone Book Review

In Behind the Lights, Helen Smallbone has written an autobiography about her life and her family. She has been more behind the scenes instead of on the main stage. In the book, she shared how she come to know Christ. She explained the story of how she met her husband, David and they had a total of six kids, two daughters and four brothers. They lived in Australia. She went into great detail about his history and how he began to work in the Christian community as a concert promoter. He worked with Petra, Stryper, Carman, Whiteheart, and a few others. She was very real in sharing the story of the three closed doors they faced as a family. She explained how her husband was good at budgeting and planning and promoting the shows. He really wanted to bring one Christian artist over and the tour ended up costing them a loss of $250,000. They were down about 40% and the touring manager and their team could care less. They pretty much told him he signed a contact and laughed in his face. She explained how these three closed doors led them into moving to America. She revealed her family work ethic and how they would all work together to make ends meet. 

 

 

In the book, she shared how Rebecca St. James got her name and how she got signed as a Christian, recording artist. David became her manager. She explained the touring side and how each of her brothers would help out in different ways. She explained why Rebecca only went to ten grade and how she felt God tell her that it would be okay. And it turned out it was. Rebecca has since released ten albums, wrote a dozen books, and starred in eight movies.

 

 

Another part of the book was looking at the story behind for Kings and Country (Luke and Joel) and how they received their name. She revealed how God brought them into performing together when Joel at first wanted to be a solo act. They wanted to at first go the secular music route and then things changed and they went into Christian music. 

 

 

I would recommend this awesome book about the whole family of the Smallbones. I enjoyed reading more about Rebecca St. James and for Kings and Country and their family story told by their mother. I liked how she also touched on Luke’s health crisis and his wife’s struggle with being addicted to an anti-nausea medication. I also liked how she opened up about how God provided for her family when they experienced hard times. One person even gave her family a Toyota. This story was very heart touching. I also connected with reading about their sister, Libby and her battle with Lyme disease, which went undiagnosed for six years. I too have suffered from this disease and it took years for me to recover. I felt many of the same symptoms she had, horrible headaches, body aches, and tired all the time and wanted to stay in bed. It was encouraging to read about how she relied on her love for her dog to help her get through this. She also was able to get healing from past wounds. I immensely liked reading about her whole family story and she how she covered each family member. 

 

 

"I received this book free from the publisher, K-Love Books for my honest review.”

 

 

 

If you would like to purchase a copy, check it out on Amazon.com:

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Lights-Extraordinary-Adventure-Family/dp/1954201249

 

Out of the Dark: My Journey Through the Shadows to Find God’s Joy by Mandisa with Suzanne Gosselin Book Review

Out of the Dark is Mandisa’s second book. Each chapter was song’s titles and contained some of her lyrics. In this book, she opens up about her life and she started with the meaning behind her top song, “Overcomer”. It was written about a challenge her best friend was facing. Her best friend, hairstylist, and former background singer, Kisha was battling stage three breast cancer for over a year and a half. Kisha found out while she was about pregnant. She was having to do a less harmful form of chemotherapy. Mandisa shared how they prayed for her and the unborn child to be protected in the womb. Her and her songwriters were almost done with the album and they needed just one more song. They wrote “Overcomer” to be a fight anthem and they never imagined how the audience would connect and relate to the song. This song is a reminder to listeners to stay in the fight until the very end even when you are down and overwhelmed. Her friend was able to attend the album release party and they raised $25,000 to help with her medical bills. She shared how she expressed hope and how they were all believing that she would be healed. She ended up going home to be with Jesus. 

 

 

Mandisa admitted to how she had a lot of hopeless thoughts and she explained how she had faith. She couldn’t understand as to why God took her home from her husband and she had two kids to raise. She explained how she was struggling with being an overcomer and each performance of this song caused her deep emotional pain. She was angry at God and upset. She opened up about her how she kept her grief in a box.  This opened the door to her past trauma, shame over her weight, and being eliminated from American Idol from still haunting her. She revealed how she went into a depression and turned back to letting food comfort her. She shared with readers her dark thoughts during this time and how she thought about taking pills to end it all. In the book, she will share with readers how she was able to come out of the pit and how others were there for her along the way even when at first, she didn’t see it. 

 

 

I would recommend this life changing book to anyone who is dealing with depression and they feel alone and not worthy. I immensely enjoyed reading Mandisa’s journey through dealing with sadness and hanging on and not giving up on her life. I had no idea she was batting depression and you couldn’t tell it. This book will benefit anyone is struggling with depression, food addiction, past trauma, and provide readers with hope. I met her a few years ago at a concert and she was personally one of the nicest people I have ever met. She has the joy of the Lord and has such a beautiful smile that is contagious. I read her first book years ago. This one also covered some of the past stories she shared about working at Lifeway and touched on her American Idol journey. I felt like in this book, she went into more details about her life. It was heartbreaking to read again about Simon’s comments and some of her trauma she faced as a child. I also liked how she talked directly to single people and included her experiences and how she encouraged them and reminded them that God can fulfill their longing with His love. 

 

 

"I received this book free from the publisher, K-Love Books for my honest review.”

 

 

 

If you would like to purchase a copy, check it out on Amazon.com:

 

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Out-Dark-Journey-Through-Shadows/dp/1954201001